


from the ashes

by waveydnp



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Book 1: Carry On, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24290788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: in a universe where simon goes back to watford to finish year eight
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 23
Kudos: 177





	from the ashes

**Author's Note:**

> this is pure self indulgence. i might add to it at some point bc i envisioned a lot more but this is all i’ve managed so far. i’m just soft for the roommate dynamic and i wanted more of it

**Simon**

Ebb is dead.

The Mage is dead.

The Humdrum is gone.

And so is my magic.

There’s no reason to go back to Watford. Penny said we could get a flat together. She said it’d be well weird to have her mother as headmistress. Eighth year is optional, and she’s already way smarter than most of the professors. Neither of us have anything left to learn there.

I’m not a magician anymore, if I even ever was. I have no business attending a magickal school.

But I’m going to do it anyway. Watford was never about the magic for me.

It was about Penny and Agatha and sour cherry scones and a room that was mine. It was about feeling like I belonged somewhere.

It was about Baz. Still is, but in a different way, now. I’ll still follow him around, but now I’ll understand why. I won’t have to pretend not to notice how fit he looks in his football kit. I won’t have to glare at him across the dining hall, because he’ll already be sat right next to me.

Watford is home. Baz is home. Our room in Mummer’s, the classrooms, the grounds… even the catacombs. That’s our story. That’s my life; the only parts worth remembering, anyway. I’m not ready to leave that behind.

**Baz**

If sleeping was hard before, it’s all but impossible now. It used to be the hunger. The _thirst_. And the burning need to be anywhere that Simon Snow wasn’t.

Now it’s… well. It’s still the need to feed. Unfortunately that’s something that never really goes away. And it’s still Snow.

He doesn’t sleep either. He pretends to, but I’ve always known the difference. His thoughts are loud. His sadness is deafening. It’s all I can hear, especially at night, when the day’s distractions are cloaked in stillness and moonlight.

We’ve been back a week. I haven’t fed and neither of us has slept. It’s not a fairy tale happy ending, even though the good guys won and the bloke I’ve been in love with for ages kissed me and told me he likes me back well enough.

He lost a lot, so much I can’t even rightfully fathom it. I reckon it might feel to him like he lost everything. I hope he doesn’t think that, but I don’t know, because he’s not really talking to me. He’s not really talking to anyone, not even Bunce. I can’t blame him, even if it’s killing me to watch him suffer in silence.

I can’t blame him, because if I’d lost as much as he did in one shot - if I lost my _magic_ \- I can’t honestly say I’d be too keen on talking about it either.

Our room smells different now. I can’t feel the waves of power rippling off him like smoke on the water. I want to tell him it doesn’t matter, that I don’t want him any less, that he isn’t anything less than a hero. That he’s the bravest living creature on this wretched unforgiving earth, hands down. I want to grab him up and squeeze him until he begs me to stop. There’s so much I _want_ and it’s all him and maybe that’s selfish, but I don’t care.

I won’t hold out much longer. My will to give him space is crumbling. Not but a few weeks ago he kissed my mouth and made me warm and told me he wanted to be my boyfriend. My terrible boyfriend. I want that so much it’s choking me, but I want even more for him to be _him_ again. The absolute pain in my ass that only Simon Snow can be. The only person who’s ever truly made me feel alive.

**Simon**

I think I must have fallen asleep, because when I roll over to face Baz’s bed, he isn’t there. My heart is immediately in my throat, my mind jumping to every possible worst case scenario.

He hasn’t left my side, not once since everything happened. He’s been right there, like a faithful shadow. Even at night, in the dark, I can feel his eyes on me from across the little bit of space between our beds. I don’t know what he’s hoping to see. I don’t know how to tell him that I’ll never be what I was. I’ll never be who I was when I was brave enough to kiss him just because I wanted to.

Not that I don’t want to do it again. I do. I still want everything I wanted before, it just feels different now. Baz is a proper magician. And a vampire. And a bloody Pitch, for Crowley’s sake.

I’m an orphan. And a Normal. Even my wings and tail are gone now, having slowly (and painfully) retracted once the magic had left me.

I sit up and wipe the sweat off my forehead. I may not deserve Baz anymore. I may not have anything to offer him now, but I reckon he still cares. When I told him I wanted to come back to Watford, he smiled and said thank Merlin, Snow.

I shiver, then. He’s left the window open for me, like he forgot that I don’t run hot anymore. It still makes me smile. I close it, fish one of my jumpers out of the wardrobe, and head down the stairs. I know where he is, and I don’t fancy being without him any longer.

-

I still hate the catacombs. They’re cold and dark and smell like death. I should’ve brought a torch. Or just had the decency to let Baz feed in peace. Now that I’m thinking about it, I realize it must have been a very long time since he’d last done that. I hadn’t even noticed, but he must have been absolutely dead on his feet. More dead than usual. The guilt threatens to crush me.

I need to do better. I need to make a list: Things I’m Not Allowed To Wallow About.

  1. Killing The Mage. It wasn’t my fault, really. I was just trying to make him stop hurting the people I love. He was a bad man, in the end. He hurt a lot of people, not just my own friends. The world is better off without him. (If I keep telling myself that, perhaps someday I’ll really believe it. Merlin and Morgana, I miss him.)
  2. Ebb’s death. She died to save Agatha. She died a hero. It wasn’t my fault. (I feel guilty for missing her less than I should. She deserved better, long before The Mage killed her. I should have visited her more. I should have made it back to Watford in time to save her. It was at least a little bit my fault.)
  3. The dead spots. I didn’t choose to be born with the abilities I used to have. No one ever taught me how to control myself. No one ever taught me much of anything unless they thought it could win them the war. And I only took that magic when I really needed it. All I ever wanted to do was protect people. (I think someday I will be able to forgive myself for the dead spots. At least they didn’t kill anyone.)
  4. Everything The Mage made me do. I killed for him. A lot. He used me. He manipulated me. It wasn’t my fault. (Fuck, I miss him.)
  5. Creating The Humdrum. I was only a child. I was scared. It wasn’t my fault.
  6. Losing my magic.



I give up there. I can’t imagine ever being able to get over the loss of my magic. It’s not like I was any good at it, but—

I’m stopped dead in my tracks as I round a corner and come face to face with Baz. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Maybe because he _isn’t_.

“Snow.”

He’s lit orange by the torches that line the wall, as are the stacks of skulls beneath them. Children’s skulls, for it’s their tomb we find ourselves in. I think he comes here when he’s sad. I hate it.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. How many times he’s made that demand of me, I couldn’t possibly hope to say. It’s different now, though; there’s no venom in his tone, only concern.

“Looking for you.” I try not to notice the pile of rat carcasses in the corner. There’s a bit of colour in his cheeks. That’s all that matters.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You were asleep,” he says. “I thought I had time…” His eyes dart quickly in the direction of the small mountain of dead rodents and then back to me.

“I woke up and you were gone and… I missed you.”

He wasn’t expecting that, I can tell. “You did?”

I nod. “Felt wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is soft and his eyes are dark.

“You needed to feed.”

“I did.”

He’s so pretty in the firelight. I can’t help the way my eyes drop down to study the shape of his lips. He looks so alive.

“You look tired,” he says. “I was happy you were getting some sleep.”

“When’s your turn?” I ask.

“I’m not worried about me.”

I take a step closer to him, close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. I do want to, because right now I’m not thinking about anything on my list.

**Baz**

He came to find me. He woke up alone, and couldn’t even stand it long enough to wait for me to come back.

I could die. I love him. I’ll annihilate anything that ever tries to touch him again.

He’s right here, standing before me, looking up at me through his nest of bronze curls. His eyes are ringed in dark circles and I should lead him back to our room and tuck him in and spell him to sleep.

“Baz,” he breathes, and I feel his warmth radiating into me, even without his magic. He smells like sweat and cheap bar soap and something more human underneath, something words don’t exist for because it’s just him.

“Simon.”

He reaches up, sliding his hand into my hair and pulling my face down close to his. “Can I?” he whispers.

“You never have to ask,” I say, wasting words when I could be kissing his perfect mouth, but I need him to know this. “The answer is and always will be yes.”

He’s smiling when he presses his lips to mine, and pulling away again before I can get my arms around him to keep him in place. “I didn’t know if you still wanted that,” he says.

“I didn’t know if you did.”

He looks away. He shivers. “Are you done feeding?”

“Yes.”

When he looks at me again, he could be a child. That’s what I see, the same scared little git he was in year one. Scared but brave, determined not to let anything get the better of him, ever.

“Can we go home?” he asks, then shakes his head. “I mean, back to our room.”

I reach for him, slipping my fingers between his. He shivers again, and I spare a moment of despair for the fact that I’ll never make him as warm as he makes me. Even without the fire of his magic, he’s like the sun, only the kind that doesn’t burn me. He closes his fingers around the back of my hand.

“Yeah,” I say, “Let’s go home.”

He doesn’t let go of me all the way back to our room, not even when we pass someone in the corridor. I reckon it’s too dark for whoever it is to see that we’re linked by our fingers, but Snow doesn’t flinch. It’s like it doesn’t even occur to him that we should probably be discreet, like he doesn’t care who sees, and maybe he doesn’t. Maybe _terrible boyfriend_ isn’t something that’s too fantastical for me to hope for after all.

We walk up the winding staircase to our room in silence, and it’s only once we reach the top that he lets go of my hand. I’m almost warm where he was touching me, and I’m not ready to be without him, but he says, “I’m going to take a shower,” and heads to the bathroom.

I should shower too, and somewhere in my brain is the deeply inappropriate urge to ask if I can join him, but luckily I’m well practiced in the art of suppressing my desires. I don’t even know if he wants the kissing to be a regular thing, let alone showing me his wet naked body. And looking at mine. Those kinds of thoughts belong squarely in my fantasies, so I cast **Clean As A Whistle** and change into my pyjamas.

I’m in my bed when he finally emerges from the loo in a cloud of hot steam, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. I close my eyes. It doesn’t feel right to look. Not tonight, not now, after everything.

Crowley. Not being Snow’s nemesis anymore is bloody exhausting. Giving a toss about his feelings isn’t exactly new for me, but acting accordingly is another thing entirely. He has so many of them.

“Are you asleep?” he asks softly.

Maybe I should pretend I am. It might encourage him to do the same. But I say, “No,” because I don’t want to lie. And I don’t want him to think I’m not available to him if he needs me.

“You should be.”

If my eyes were open, I’d roll them. “I’m fine, Snow.”

“ _I’m_ fine,” he says. “Hunt when you need to hunt. Sleep when you’re tired. I’m not gonna break.”

I hear his towel hit the floor. It takes every ounce of my considerable self restraint to keep my eyes closed. “I went to hunt and you followed me,” I say, careful to keep accusation out of my tone.

“Because you didn’t tell me you were leaving. I was worried.”

I open my eyes, because his words make no sense and I need to see the expression on his face. I prop myself up on one elbow to watch him pull his pyjama bottoms up.

He looks at me. I raise my eyebrow. “Were you?”

He nods.

“For me?” I ask. “Or for you.”

He sits on the edge of his bed and whispers, “I don’t know. It’s not like it’s any different than before. I always felt the need to keep tabs on you.”

“It’s a little different now though, yeah?”

My heart kicks. He could say no.

His mattress creaks as he stands up. I hold my breath, but he’s walking toward me. He stands at the side of my bed and waits, so I shuffle over to give him room, never taking my eyes off his. There’s no more light in the room than the moon gives off, but I can see everything perfectly. His hair is damp, falling in waves across his forehead, and he’s biting his lip as he lifts my duvet and climbs right in next to me.

His body is touching mine. He’s warm, always so bloody warm. I’m still holding my breath, but he’s here and he’s looking at me. He’s slipping his hand under my shirt to touch my stomach and I think I might actually be about to die.

“It’s different now,” he says.

**Simon**

I don’t know why he looks so surprised. I already told him I wanted him. If anything it’s me who should be surprised he still wants anything to do with a used up ex-magician like me. With a murderer like me.

No. I’m not thinking about my list, not when Baz is stroking the hair off my face and pressing his mouth to my forehead. His lips are cool and soft and he smells like he always does, like cedar and spice.

The first words out of my mouth are not the ones I would’ve chosen if I’d been giving it any conscious thought: “I’m so tired.”

He nods. “Me too.”

“Can I sleep here?”

“You better, Snow.” He wraps his arms around me.

I tuck my head under his chin. “You called me Simon before.”

“You can’t prove anything.”

I grin, tilting my face up into the underside of his jaw. “You’ll say it again.”

“I won’t stand for this kind of slander.” His voice is deep, I can feel the vibration of it in his throat.

It’s hot. I’m still shocked by that, how fit I find I find him. I wonder how I ever managed to convince myself I hated him.

“I want this, by the way,” I say, sliding my hand up higher so it’s pressed against his chest. “You said you weren’t sure if I did. But I do.”

“I do too,” he says. “Always have.”


End file.
